The federal government will continue going after bad actors engaged in cryptocurrency-related crimes without hampering the technology’s advancement and usage, Department of Justice officials told a convention audience on the Las Vegas Strip Monday.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel addressed the Bitcoin 2026 gathering remotely, two days after an alleged gunman tried to storm the White House Correspondents’ Dinner attended by President Donald Trump.

“Both the director and I had our bags packed and were ready to be there in person, but given the events that happened on Saturday night, we were needed here in D.C.,” Blanche said.

The Associated Press reported Monday the California suspect was formally accused of trying to assassinate the president.

Vice President JD Vance gave the keynote speech at the 2025 Bitcoin convention also held at The Venetian. That day, he celebrated the fact that Bitcoin’s value had surpassed $108,000 per coin. A ticker at the event stage showed that had dipped to $76,822 as of Monday morning.

The three-day conference is slated to run through Wednesday. It will feature hundreds of speakers, including Eric Trump, the president’s son, and Jack Dorsey, the Twitter co-founder who is now the chairman of the financial technology service Block.

Not regulation through prosecution

As deputy attorney general, Blanche issued a memo in April 2025 that set prosecution guidelines related to digital assets in tandem with a Trump executive order that sought to end the “regulatory weaponization” against the technologies.

Blanche replaced former Attorney General Pam Bondi after she was ousted earlier this month.

“We’re no longer going to regulate by prosecuting,” Blanche said at the Monday event. “Which means, quite simply, that if you are a developer, if you are part of a platform — whether it’s in the United States or elsewhere — we are not going to take your liberty away and prosecute you when there’s not even a developed regulation that points clearly to a law that you’re violating, or some maxim that you’re violating.”

The agency isn’t excusing bad actors, but those who aren’t no longer have to “sleep with one eye open,” he said.

Blanche said that he began investing in Bitcoin about a decade ago but had to divest when he joined the Department of Justice.

“I know just enough about about the crypto industry to hopefully have success in this job, but currently, I am not allowed to own any assets in crypto,” he said.

FBI cracking down on fraud

Patel, a Las Vegas resident, said that he, too, had to divest from his cryptocurrency assets.

He said the FBI was cracking down on transnational “crypto scam centers” in the last year and was targeting so-called pig butchering schemes, in which a fraudster gains the trust of victims to rip them off.

“We want to be able to make sure that Americans, whether you’re 15 or 85, and you’ve invested in Bitcoin or virtual assets, that your currency is safe and secure from any kind of theft,” Patel said.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.